Possible Faulty AGC on Gary's Refurbished PR-D4W

Giving an update of his previous post about the Sangean PR-D4W, Gary writes:

Sadly, my refurbished PR-D4W only worked well for a little over one day. Now, medium strength and weaker AM stations have a greatly reduced audio level. Before, they sounded fine. It seems like the AGC is faulty. For example, KFI 640 is loud and clear on both the PR-D4W and the PR-D5. KABC 790 is loud and clear on the PR-D5, but has a very low audio level on the PR-D4W. Also, it seems like the AM auto tracking isn't working properly anymore, except maybe on strong stations.

Something in the DSP circuitry has probably gone awry, causing these two issues. Oh well. It was worth a try. Back it goes. No more Sangean "certified refurbished" radios for me.

Comments

[Gary]

I returned the refurb PR-D4W and purchased a new one, directly from Amazon, which I received yesterday. I found the new one has very poor reception on the lower part of the AM band. With my PR-D5, the Simi Valley 530 kHz TIS station comes in pretty well, but on the PR-D4W it's mostly imperceptible mumbling down in the noise.

Today I tested the PR-D4W (Jay Allen 4.5 stars) versus my smaller PR-D7 (3 stars). The latter radio is much more sensitive on 530/540/550 kHz, which is the opposite of how it should be. Obviously, the new PR-D4W is defective. I can't recall another Sangean radio I've bought new that was defective. I did have one with a bad AC adapter, but that's it.

[Randall Nielsen]

So Just came back from Tokyo. No more made in Japan radios to be seen. Sad.
I'm glad I still have my EX5 and 7600GR (but they can be had for a price lol) I hope the radio blog is back. I missed it.

[Wayne]

I've not auditioned or owned a refurbished SANGEAN PR-D4W, but I've played with four of these sets. One of them had very weak AM sensitivity and was obviously defective. All four had a defect that I suspect is inherently common to all of these sets unless it's been fixed, and would likely go unnoticed unless one were aware of it. There are spurious emissions that occur sporadically across the FM band. The reason these would go unnoticed by most is that these emissions don't whistle or make any obvious sounds. Instead, when on a frequency exhibiting such emissions, the tonality of the FM hiss changes such that there is a raspiness to it and the signal meter displays a ghost signal, and any weak signal usually received on that frequency will not be received because the spurious emission covers it up. I suspect that there is an unshelled component causing the issue.

I have a love / hate relationship with this model. If only SANGEAN would get input from folks who enjoy these kinds of radios, they might produce a real winner. I know, you can't please everyone, but I would have preferred that the PR-D4W used C rather than D cells. I needs a carrying handle too. I also wish it had a mat finish. So, here's what I really like about it. It has very good sensitivity on all bands and the adjustable bandwidth filter is terrific! In the wide positions, AM sounds crisp and clear! SANGRAN should install this feature on all of their models.